Infectious diseases of livestock cause a reduction in the body weight of the domestic animal or cause various symptoms, and as a result, the value of the domestic animal as a product is remarkably reduced. For example, Staphylococcus aureus is a bacterium causing mastitis, subcutaneous tumor, and pyemia in cattle, sheep, and goats, rash in horses, arthritis, dermatitis, and sepsis in pigs and chickens. Meanwhile, Streptococcus suis is a bacterium causing meningitis, sepsis, endocarditis, and arthritis in pigs.
In addition, of Clostridium bacteria, Clostridium perfringens causes necrotic enteritis through its infection and causes enterotoxemia and malignant edema. Necrotic enteritis exhibits both high morbidity and high fatality, and hence, the disease gives great economical damage to the industries of poultry raising, broiler farming, pig farming, and dairy. Thus, of many diseases of livestock and domestic fowls, necrotic enteritis is one of the most important diseases, for which the controlling measure must be rapidly established.
The features of necrotic enteritis include diarrhea in piglets and chicks clinically, and involve invasion of a bacterium into the intestinal mucosa and necrosis of the small intestine. Enterotoxemia is a disease in which Clostridium perfringens grows in the small intestine of an animal and produces a toxin, and the toxin causes a necrotic and hemorrhagic lesion, resulting in acute death because of toxemia. Malignant edema is a disease in which a bacterium enters a wound surface produced accidentally or by surgery to develop the disease, and the bacterium germinates, reproduces, and generates a toxin, causing toxemia and bacteremia and finally leading to death.
Clostridium perfringens infectious disease is a serious infectious disease, but methods for its prevention and therapy have not yet been established. For example, suitable farming and controlling have been performed as a preventive method, but actually, the prevention is extremely difficult.
In order to prevent and treat Clostridium perfringens infectious disease, a method comprising administering an antibiotic and any other antimicrobial agent with a feed has also been conducted. However, in particular, such problems as occurrence of resistant bacteria and persistence of antibiotics and the like in meat have occurred in recent years, and hence, there is a growing tendency that administering antibiotics and the like to animals is not proper. Thus, it has been desired to develop a method for preventing and treating this disease without using antibiotics and the like, and a medicament.
Meanwhile, there has been known a medicament for preventing and treating a Clostridium perfringens infectious disease of livestock and domestic fowls, the medicament containing one kind or two or more kinds of herbal medicine selected from the group consisting of Phellodendri cortex, Geranium thunbergii, Magnolia obovata, Salvia miltiorrhiza bunge, Anemarrhena rhizome, Rheum, Syzygium aromaticum, Ligustrum lucidum Ait, Schizonepeta tenuifolia, Cinnamomi cortex, Scrophularia ningpoensis, Cassiae semen, Eriobotryae folium, Saposhnikovia seseloides, Humulus lupulus, Perilla herb, Myrica rubra, Forsythia suspensa, Aloe, ox bile, Clematis chinensis Osbeck, Prunus mume Sieb. Et Zucc., Rabdosia japonica, Plantago asiatica, Magnolia kobus, Artemisia capillaris thunb, Aquilaria agallocha, Cnidium officinale, Ligusticum sinense oliv, Rhus chinensis, Cornus officinalis, Lithospermum erythrorhizon, Picrorhiza scrophulariiflora, Paeonia lactiflora, Rosa laevigata Michx, thyme, Nandina domestica var. leucocarpa, Sanguisorba officinalis, and Ephedra (Patent Literature 1). In addition, there has been known a medicament for preventing and treating clostridium perfringens infectious disease characterized by containing pinene, thymol, eugenol, limonene, myristica fragrans, thyme, syzygium aromaticum, and citrus (Patent Literature 2).
However, there remains a problem that the effect of those techniques is not constant, and consequently, the techniques have not been put into practice.
It is known that a cashew nut shell liquid and/or anacardic acid have/has an antimicrobial action (Non Patent Literature 1) and a coccidiosis-alleviating action (Patent Literature 3). In addition, in has been reported that a cashew nut shell liquid and/or anacardic acid have/has an antimicrobial action against Gram-positive bacteria such as Staphylococcos aureus, Streptococcus mutans, Bacillus subtilis, and Bacillus ammoniagenes, and have/has no antimicrobial action against Gram-negative bacteria such as Escherichia coli, Enterobacter aerogenes, and Pseudomonas aeruginosa and fungi such as Saccharomyces cerevisiae, Candida utilis, and Penichillium chrysogenum (Non Patent Literature 2). However, it has not been known that a cashew nutshell liquid and/or anacardic acid have/has an antimicrobial action against Clostridium bacteria, particularly against Clostridium perfringens, and there have been no reports on effects of preventing and treating necrotic enteritis, enterotoxemia, and malignant edema.